In urban planning , the grid plan , grid street plan , or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid .
198-810: Greenwich Village , or simply the Village , is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village also contains several subsections, including the West Village west of Seventh Avenue and the Meatpacking District in the northwest corner of Greenwich Village. Its name comes from Groenwijck , Dutch for "Green District". In
396-480: A noise wall or a security gate —is completely separated from the road network except for one or two connections to arterial roads. In a way, this is a return to medieval styles: as noted in Spiro Kostof 's seminal history of urban design , The City Shaped , there is a strong resemblance between the street arrangements of modern American suburbs and those of medieval Arab and Moorish cities. In each case,
594-498: A 12-story building at 80 Pine Street, a 26-story building at 123 William Street, and a few others were built in 1957. By the end of the decade, Lower Manhattan had become economically depressed, in comparison with Midtown Manhattan , which was booming with the continued march uptown . David Rockefeller spearheaded widespread urban renewal efforts in Lower Manhattan, beginning with constructing One Chase Manhattan Plaza ,
792-402: A 39% reduction. Simultaneously, block lengths increase from 200 × 200 feet to 1240 × 200 feet. When all five blocks have reached the ultimate size of 1,240 feet (380 m) four street lengths out of total eight have been eliminated. Block lengths of 1,000 feet (300 m) or larger rarely appear in grid plans and are not recommended as they hinder pedestrian movement (Pedestrianism, below). From
990-514: A Historic District established by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission . The District's convoluted borders run no farther south than 4th Street or St. Luke's Place, and no farther east than Washington Square East or University Place. Redevelopment in that area is severely restricted, and developers must preserve the main façade and aesthetics of the buildings during renovation. Most of
1188-528: A Spanish civil engineer, defined a concept of urban planning, based on the grid, that he applied to the Eixample of Barcelona . The Eixample grid introduced innovative design elements which were exceptional at the time and even unique among subsequent grid plans: These innovations he based on functional grounds: the block size, to enable the creation of a quiet interior open space (60 m by 60 m) and allow ample sunlight and ventilation to its perimeter buildings;
1386-544: A direct route. While the imposition of only one town form regardless of region could be seen as an imposition of imperial authority, there is no doubting the practical reasoning behind the formation of the Roman grid. Under Roman guidance, the grid was designed for efficiency and interchangeability, both facilitated by and aiding the expansion of their empire. As Japan and the Korean peninsula became politically centralized in
1584-775: A division of The New School, and the School's Graduate School expanded in the 2000s, with the renovated, award-winning design of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at 66 Fifth Avenue on 13th Street. The Cooper Union is located in Greenwich Village, at Astor Place , near St. Mark's Place on the border of the East Village . Pratt Institute established its latest Manhattan campus in an adaptively reused Brunner & Tryon -designed loft building on 14th Street, east of Seventh Avenue. The university campus building expansion
1782-455: A few hundred settlers, became the nucleus for what is now a city of over 5 million people, the city of Melbourne. The unusual dimensions of the allotments and the incorporation of narrow 'little' streets were the result of compromise between Hoddle's desire to employ the regulations established in 1829 by previous New South Wales Governor Ralph Darling, requiring square blocks and wide, spacious streets and Bourke's desire for rear access ways (now
1980-656: A group of 22 houses sharing a common back garden, built in the Greek Revival style and later renovated with Colonial Revival façades. In 1969, the LPC designated the Greenwich Village Historic District – which remained the city's largest for four decades – despite preservationists' advocacy for the entire neighborhood to be designated an historic district. Advocates continued to pursue their goal of additional designation, spurred in particular by
2178-621: A higher percentage than in Philadelphia or Boston . The 1735 libel trial of John Peter Zenger in the city was a seminal influence on freedom of the press in North America. It would be a standard for the basic articles of freedom in the United States Declaration of Independence . By the 1740s, with expansion of settlers, 20% of the population of New York were slaves, totaling about 2,500 people. After
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#17327662659252376-481: A layout. New Haven Colony , one of the earliest colonies in America, was designed with a tiny 9-square grid at its founding in 1638. On a grander scale, Philadelphia was designed on a rectilinear street grid in 1682, one of the first cities in North America to use a grid system. At the urging of city founder William Penn , surveyor Thomas Holme designed a system of wide streets intersecting at right angles between
2574-496: A mile north of Manhattan 's southern tip around Chambers Street near the Hudson River east of the entrances and overpass to the Brooklyn Bridge . Two other major arteries to Lower Manhattan are Canal Street , roughly half a mile north of Chambers Street, and 23rd Street , roughly half a mile north of 14th Street. Lower Manhattan's central business district forms the core of the area below Chambers Street and includes
2772-444: A more permanent home at 52 West 8th Street. The school remained active until 1958, when Hofmann retired from teaching. On January 8, 1947, stevedore Andy Hintz was fatally shot by hitmen John M. Dunn , Andrew Sheridan , and Danny Gentile in front of his apartment. Before he died on January 29, he told his wife that "Johnny Dunn shot me." The three gunmen were immediately arrested. Sheridan and Dunn were executed. The Village hosted
2970-602: A neighborhood still retaining many houses of the 1830–37 boom. From 1797 until 1829, the bucolic village of Greenwich was the location of New York State's first penitentiary , Newgate Prison, on the Hudson River at what is now West 10th Street , near the Christopher Street pier. The building was designed by Joseph-François Mangin , who would later co-design New York City Hall . Although the intention of its first warden, Quaker prison reformer Thomas Eddy ,
3168-552: A new Independence Plaza, Washington Market Park , and other developments. Lower Manhattan retains the most irregular street grid plans in the borough. Throughout the early decades of the 1900s, the area experienced a construction boom, with major towers such as 40 Wall Street , the American International Building , Woolworth Building , and 20 Exchange Place being erected. Many new water crossings into Lower Manhattan were built at this time, including
3366-633: A part of the Village ethos. Shortly after the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) was established in 1965, it acted to protect parts of Greenwich Village, designating the small Charlton-King-Vandam Historic District in 1966, which contains the city's largest concentration of row houses in the Federal style, as well as a significant concentration of Greek Revival houses, and the even smaller MacDougal-Sullivan Gardens Historic District in 1967,
3564-712: A plurality (42%) are between the ages of 25–44, while 24% are between 45 and 64, and 15% are 65 or older. The ratio of youth and college-aged residents was lower, at 9% and 10%, respectively. As of 2017, the median household income in Community Districts 1 and 2 (including the Financial District and Tribeca ) was $ 144,878, though the median income in Greenwich Village individually was $ 119,728. In 2018, an estimated 9% of Greenwich Village and SoHo residents lived in poverty, compared to 14% in all of Manhattan and 20% in all of New York City. Rent burden, or
3762-783: A result of Alexander Hamilton 's policies and practices as the first Secretary of the Treasury and, later, with the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, which connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the North American interior. Immigration resumed after being slowed by wars in Europe, and a new street grid system, the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 , expanded to encompass all of Manhattan. Early in
3960-405: A result, street frequency drops and so does the total street length and, therefore, the cost. In general, it is not the street pattern per se that affects costs but the frequency of streets that it either necessitates or purposely incorporates. An inherent advantage of the orthogonal geometry of a proper grid is its tendency to yield regular lots in well-packed sequences. This maximizes the use of
4158-416: A series of fires in 1741, the city became panicked that blacks planned to burn the city in a conspiracy with some poor whites. Historians believe their alarm was mostly fabrication and fear, but officials rounded up 31 blacks and 4 whites, all of whom were convicted of arson and executed. City officials executed 13 blacks by burning them alive and hanged 4 whites and 18 blacks. In 1754, Columbia University
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#17327662659254356-475: A series of streets named after trees or plants, running northward alphabetically from Ash to Walnut. As in many cities, some of these streets have been given new names violating the system (the former D Street is now Broadway, the former 12th Avenue is now Park Boulevard, etc.); this has meant that 2nd, not 1st, is the most common street name in the United States. An exception to the typical, uniform grid
4554-457: Is 200 feet × 200 feet while Miletus' is half that size and Timgad's half again (see diagram). Houston, Sacramento and Barcelona are progressively bigger reaching up to four times the area of Portland's block. New York's 1811 plan (see above) has blocks of 200 feet (61 m). in width and variable lengths ranging from about 500 feet (150 m) to 900 feet (270 m) feet. The corresponding frequency of streets for each of these block sizes affects
4752-594: Is adjacent to the Judson Memorial Church , community groups sued the university, claiming the construction of a 13-story tower on the site would "loom behind the campanile of [the church]" and "mar the historic silhouette of Greenwich Village as viewed from Washington Square Park". Despite a justice in State Supreme Court dismissing the case, the university agreed to a settlement with the groups to avoid future appeals, which included reducing
4950-490: Is an art school formed in the mid-1960s in the Village. Officially opened September 23, 1964, the school is still active, at 8 W. 8th Street, the site of the original Whitney Museum of American Art . Greenwich Village was home to a safe house used by the radical anti-war movement known as the Weather Underground . On March 6, 1970, their safehouse was destroyed when an explosive device they were constructing
5148-425: Is another sub-neighborhood of Greenwich Village that is bordered on its west by the Hudson River and on its east by Hudson Street . Into the early 20th century, Greenwich Village was distinguished from the upper-class neighborhood of Washington Square—based on the major landmark of Washington Square Park or Empire Ward in the 19th century. Encyclopædia Britannica ' s 1956 article on "New York (City)" states (under
5346-502: Is more organic than the planned grid pattern of the 19th century grid plan (based on the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 ). Greenwich Village was allowed to keep the 18th century street pattern of what is now called the West Village: areas that were already built up when the plan was implemented, west of what is now Greenwich Avenue and Sixth Avenue , resulted in a neighborhood whose streets are dramatically different, in layout, from
5544-540: Is not dependent on pattern configuration. As with the street width, any pattern can have wide or narrow pavements. Of all three factors that affect cost, street width, street length and pavement width, only street length is pattern dependent. An objective cost comparison would, therefore, rely on this variable with the full understanding that the other variables, though optional, can play a role. Traditional orthogonal grid patterns generally have greater street frequencies than discontinuous patterns. For example, Portland's block
5742-504: Is now Greenwich Village, in an area that became known as the Land of the Blacks . The earliest known reference to the village's name as "Greenwich" dates back to 1696, in the will of Yellis Mandeville of Greenwich; however, the village was not mentioned in the city records until 1713. Sir Peter Warren began accumulating land in 1731 and built a frame house capacious enough to hold sittings of
5940-541: Is part of Manhattan Community District 2 , and is patrolled by the 6th Precinct of the New York City Police Department . Greenwich Village has undergone extensive gentrification and commercialization; the four ZIP Codes that constitute the Village – 10011, 10012, 10003, and 10014 – were all ranked among the ten most expensive in the United States by median housing prices in 2014, according to Forbes , with residential property sale prices in
6138-626: Is the giant Manhattan Municipal Building . North of Chambers Street and the Brooklyn Bridge and south of Canal Street is the Chinatown neighborhood , home to the largest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere . Many court buildings and other government offices are located in this area. The Lower East Side neighborhood straddles Canal Street. North of Canal Street and south of 14th Street are SoHo ,
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6336-840: Is the plan of Savannah, Georgia (1733), known as the Oglethorpe Plan . It is a composite, cellular city block consisting of four large corner blocks, four small blocks in between and a public square in the centre; the entire composition of approximately ten acres (four hectares) is known as a ward. Its cellular structure includes all the primary land uses of a neighborhood and has for that reason been called fractal . Its street configuration presages modern traffic calming techniques applied to uniform grids where certain selected streets become discontinuous or narrow, thus discouraging through traffic. The configuration also represents an example of functional shared space , where pedestrian and vehicular traffic can safely and comfortably coexist. In
6534-635: The Village Vanguard and the Blue Note are still presenting some of the biggest names in jazz on a regular basis. Other music clubs include The Bitter End , and Lion's Den . The Village has its own orchestra aptly named the Greenwich Village Orchestra . Comedy clubs dot the Village as well, including Comedy Cellar , where many American stand-up comedians got their start. Several publications have offices in
6732-617: The Babylonian Empire in the 18th century BC, ordered the rebuilding of Babylon : constructing and restoring temples, city walls, public buildings, and irrigation canals. The streets of Babylon were wide and straight, intersected approximately at right angles, and were paved with bricks and bitumen . The tradition of grid plans is continuous in China from the 15th century BC onward in the traditional urban planning of various ancient Chinese states. Guidelines put into written form in
6930-401: The Brooklyn Bridge in Lower Manhattan. Municipal governments contained within the boroughs were abolished, and the county governmental functions, housed in Lower Manhattan after unification, were absorbed by the city or each borough. Washington Market was located between Barclay and Hubert Streets, and from Greenwich Street to West Street . It was demolished in the 1960s and replaced by
7128-459: The Caffe Cino at 31 Cornelia Street, operated by the eccentric Joe Cino , who early on took a liking to actors and playwrights and agreed to let them stage plays there without bothering to read the plays first, or to even find out much about the content. Also integral to the rise of Off-Off-Broadway were Ellen Stewart at La MaMa , originally located at 321 E. 9th Street, and Al Carmines at
7326-619: The Church of St. Luke in the Fields was founded in 1820, it stood in fields south of the road (now Christopher Street) that led from Greenwich Lane (now Greenwich Avenue ) down to a landing on the North River. In 1822, a yellow fever epidemic in New York encouraged residents to flee to the healthier air of Greenwich Village, and afterwards many stayed. The future site of Washington Square
7524-479: The Commercial Advertiser was writing that "Greenwich is no longer a country village. Such has been the growth of our city that the building of one block more will connect the two places" of Greenwich and New York. By 1850, the city had developed entirely around Greenwich Village such that the two were no longer considered separate. Greenwich Village historically was known as an important landmark on
7722-513: The East Village to the east, SoHo and Hudson Square to the south, and Chelsea and Union Square to the north. The East Village was formerly considered part of the Lower East Side and has never been considered a part of Greenwich Village. The western part of Greenwich Village is known as the West Village ; the dividing line of its eastern border is debated but commonly cited as Seventh Avenue or Sixth Avenue . The Far West Village
7920-475: The East Village , and Downtown Brooklyn and on par with Downtown Jersey City and Williamsburg . In June 2015, The New York Times wrote that Lower Manhattan's dining scene was experiencing a renaissance. There are over 400 casual dining and more than 100 full-service dining restaurants in the area. The Village Voice , based at 80 Maiden Lane in the Financial District and historically
8118-503: The East Village - Haight Ashbury hippie scene of the next decade. The Village (and surrounding New York City) would later play central roles in the writings of, among others, Maya Angelou , James Baldwin , William S. Burroughs , Truman Capote , Allen Ginsberg , Jack Kerouac , Rod McKuen , Marianne Moore , and Dylan Thomas , who collapsed at the Chelsea Hotel , and died at St. Vincents Hospital at 170 West 12th Street, in
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8316-551: The Film Forum . The Salvation Army 's former American headquarters at 120–130 West 14th Street is in the northern portion of Greenwich Village. Lower Manhattan Lower Manhattan , also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York City , is the southernmost part of the New York City borough of Manhattan . The neighborhood is the historical birthplace of New York City and for its first 225 years
8514-564: The Financial District in Lower Manhattan, New York City is the leading global center for finance and fintech . The Financial District houses Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange , the Federal Reserve Bank of New York , and other major financial institutions. A center of culture and tourism , Lower Manhattan is home to many of New York City's most iconic structures, including New York City Hall ,
8712-538: The Financial District , commonly known as Wall Street after the name of its primary artery, and the World Trade Center site . At the island's southern tip is Battery Park , near the Bowling Green ; City Hall is north of the Financial District. South of Chambers Street are Battery Park City and South Street Seaport . TriBeCa straddles Chambers Street on the west side; at the street's east end
8910-552: The Grey Art Gallery bordering Washington Square Park, at 100 Washington Square East. The Grey Art Gallery is notable for its museum-quality exhibitions of contemporary art. The Village has a bustling performing arts scene. It is home to many Off Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway theaters; for instance, Blue Man Group has taken up residence in the Astor Place Theater. The Village Gate (until 1992),
9108-706: The Kaogongji during the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 BC) stated: "a capital city should be square on plan. Three gates on each side of the perimeter lead into the nine main streets that crisscross the city and define its grid-pattern. And for its layout the city should have the Royal Court situated in the south, the Marketplace in the north, the Imperial Ancestral Temple in the east and
9306-666: The Meatpacking District , the West Village , Greenwich Village , Little Italy , Nolita , and the East Village . Between 14th and 23rd Streets are lower Chelsea , Union Square , the Flatiron District , Gramercy , and Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village . The area that would eventually encompass modern-day New York City was inhabited by the Lenape people. These groups of culturally and linguistically identical Native Americans who spoke an Algonquian language now referred to as Unami . European settlement began with
9504-781: The National LGBTQ Wall of Honor was inaugurated at the Stonewall Inn; and on June 28, 2024, the Stonewall National Monument Visitors Center opened, as the first official national visitors center dedicated to the LGBTQ+ experience to open anywhere in the world. Numerous politicians and celebrities participated in the inauguration ceremonies, and the New York City Subway 's Christopher Street–Sheridan Square station
9702-623: The New York General Assembly when smallpox rendered the city dangerous in 1739 and subsequent years; on one occasion in 1746, the house of Mordecai Gomez was used. Warren's house, which survived until the Civil War era , overlooked the North River from a bluff; its site on the block bounded by Perry and Charles Streets, Bleecker and West 4th Streets, can still be recognized by its mid-19th century rowhouses inserted into
9900-548: The New Zealand Company , the plans for Wellington , New Plymouth and Nelson . All of these towns were laid out on a grid plan, so it was easy to divide the land into acre plots of one chain by one furlong , 66 by 660 feet (20 by 201 m) (approximately 0.4 ha.), and these became known as town acres. Adelaide was divided into 1042 Town Acres. Maps showing the divisions of the town acres are available for Adelaide, Nelson, and Wellington. Ildefons Cerdà ,
10098-716: The Port Authority decided to build the World Trade Center on a site along the Hudson River and the West Side Highway , rather than the East River site. When building the World Trade Center , 1.2 million cubic yards (917,000 m ) of material was excavated from the site. Rather than dumping the spoil at sea or in landfills, the fill material was used to expand the Manhattan shoreline across West Street, creating Battery Park City . The result
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#173276626592510296-729: The Provincetown Players converted the structure into a theatre they christened the Cherry Lane Playhouse, which opened on March 24, 1924, with the play The Man Who Ate the Popomack . During the 1940s The Living Theatre , Theatre of the Absurd , and the Downtown Theater movement all took root there, and it developed a reputation as a showcase for aspiring playwrights and emerging voices. In one of
10494-554: The River Torrens . Two areas south ( the city centre ) and north ( North Adelaide ) of the river were laid out in grid pattern, with the city surrounded by the Adelaide Park Lands . Hoddle Grid is the name given to the layout of Melbourne , Victoria, named after the surveyor Robert Hoddle , who marked it out in 1837 establishing the first formal town plan. This grid of streets, laid out when there were only
10692-668: The Schuylkill River to the west and the Delaware River to the east, including five squares of dedicated parkland. Penn advertised this orderly design as a safeguard against overcrowding, fire, and disease, which plagued European cities. Holme drafted an ideal version of the grid, but alleyways sprouted within and between larger blocks as the city took shape. As the United States expanded westward, grid-based city planning modeled on Philadelphia's layout would become popular among frontier cities, making grids ubiquitous across
10890-608: The September 11 attacks in 2001, two of four hijacked planes were flown into the Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center , and the towers collapsed. The 7 World Trade Center was not struck by a plane but uncontrolled fires that were caused by falling debris resulted in the building's collapse; a first in the history of steel framed skyscrapers. The 3, 4, 5, and 6 World Trade Center buildings were damaged beyond repair or destroyed, and soon after demolished. The collapse of
11088-401: The Velvet Underground . The Greenwich Village of the 1950s and 1960s was at the center of Jane Jacobs 's book The Death and Life of Great American Cities , which defended it and similar communities, while criticizing common urban renewal policies of the time. Founded by New York-based artist Mercedes Matter and her students, the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture
11286-403: The West Bronx (the current site of Bronx Community College ), to Greenwich Village with many buildings around Gould Plaza on West 4th Street. In 1976 Yeshiva University established the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in the northern part of Greenwich Village. In the 1980s Hebrew Union College was built in Greenwich Village. The New School , with its Parsons The New School for Design ,
11484-439: The Williamsburg Bridge in 1903 and the Manhattan Bridge in 1909. The Holland Tunnel to New Jersey opened in 1927, while the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel to Brooklyn opened in 1950 and was the last major fixed crossing to be built to Lower Manhattan. Despite these road connections opening, the economic center of New York City began to shift from Lower Manhattan to Midtown with the opening of many commuter rail terminals at
11682-517: The Woolworth Building , 40 Wall Street (also known as the Trump Building), 26 Wall Street (also known as the Standard Oil Building), and 70 Pine Street (also known as the American International Building ). In 1966, the commercial district of Radio Row on Cortlandt Street was demolished to make way for construction of the former World Trade Center. Downtown in the context of Manhattan, and of New York City generally, has different meanings to different people, especially depending on where in
11880-427: The Woolworth Building , the Stonewall Inn , the Bull of Wall Street , and One World Trade Center , the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere . Lower Manhattan is delineated on the north by 14th Street , on the west by the Hudson River , on the east by the East River , and on the south by New York Harbor . Its northern border is designated by thoroughfares about a mile-and-a-half south of 14th Street and
12078-411: The World Trade Center area and the Financial District . The phrase Lower Manhattan may apply to any of these definitions: the broader ones often if the speaker is discussing the area in relation to the rest of the city; more restrictive ones, again, if the focus is on business matters or on the colonial and early post-colonial history of the island. Grid plan Two inherent characteristics of
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#173276626592512276-436: The castra were often standard, with each of its four walls generally having a length of 660 metres (2,150 ft). Familiarity was the aim of such standardisation: soldiers could be stationed anywhere around the Empire, and orientation would be easy within established towns if they had a standard layout. Each would have the aforementioned decumanus maximus and cardo maximus at its heart, and their intersection would form
12474-417: The '2-nd Line' on the eastern side, and the '3-rd Line' on the western side. After the reorganization of house numbering in 1834 and 1858 the even house numbers are used on the odd-numbered lines, and respectively odd house numbers are used for the even-numbered lines. The maximum numbers for 'lines' in Petersburg are 28-29th lines. Later in the middle of the 18th century another grid of rectangular blocks with
12672-621: The 'blight' of many tenement areas, by demolishing slums, factories, and working-class neighborhoods through public works such as the High line , the West Side Highway and FDR Drive , built housing projects, expanded new parks, rebuilt streets, and zoning controls , especially in Lower Manhattan. The zoning changes were intended to displace the industrial workforce by removing zoning protection for industrial space and incentivizing upscale residential and clerical redevelopment. The port of New York, despite its physical suitability for berthing and its close proximity to Europe, began to deteriorate due to
12870-411: The 'little' streets, for example Little Collins Street ). The city of Christchurch , New Zealand, was planned by Edward Jollie in 1850. The term "town acre" (often spelt with initial capital letters) may have originated with Edward Gibbon Wakefield who, in the 1830s, was involved in various schemes to promote the colonisation of South Australia and its capital, Adelaide , and, as founder of
13068-499: The 16th century, Lenape referred to its farthest northwest corner, by the cove on the Hudson River at present-day Gansevoort Street, as Sapokanikan ("tobacco field"). The land was cleared and turned into pasture by the Dutch and their enslaved Africans, who named their settlement Noortwyck (also spelled Noortw ij ck , "North district", equivalent to 'North wich /Northwick'). In the 1630s, Governor Wouter van Twiller farmed tobacco on 200 acres (0.81 km) here at his "Farm in
13266-428: The 1960s. However, during the 1920s, the rapid adoption of the automobile caused a panic among urban planners , who, based on observation, claimed that speeding cars would eventually kill tens of thousands of small children per year. Apparently, at this early stage of the car's entry into the grid, the streets of major cities worldwide were the scene of virtual "slaughter" as the fatality rate in proportion to population
13464-401: The 19th century, the landfill was used to expand Lower Manhattan from the natural Hudson shoreline at Greenwich Street to West Street . In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then an independent city), Manhattan and outlying areas. The borough of Brooklyn incorporated the independent City of Brooklyn, recently joined to Manhattan by
13662-465: The 1st millennium BC to the 11th century AD, also had grid-based designs. A workers' village (2570–2500 BC) at Giza , Egypt , housed a rotating labor force and was laid out in blocks of long galleries separated by streets in a formal grid. Many pyramid-cult cities used a common orientation: a north–south axis from the royal palace and an east–west axis from the temple, meeting at a central plaza where King and God merged and crossed. Hammurabi king of
13860-459: The 20th century, Greenwich Village was known as an artists' haven, the bohemian capital, the cradle of the modern LGBTQ movement , and the East Coast birthplace of both the Beat Generation and counterculture of the 1960s . Greenwich Village contains Washington Square Park , as well as two of New York City's private colleges, New York University (NYU) and The New School . In later years it has been associated with hipsters . Greenwich Village
14058-454: The 7th century AD, those societies adopted Chinese grid-planning principles in numerous locations. In Korea, Gyeongju , the capital of Unified Silla , and Sanggyeong , the capital of Balhae , adapted the Tang dynasty Chinese model. The ancient capitals of Japan, such as Fujiwara-Kyô (AD 694–710), Nara (Heijô-Kyô, AD 710–784), and Kyoto (Heian-Kyô, AD 794–1868) also adapted from Tang's capital, Chang'an . However, for reasons of defense,
14256-741: The Altar to the Gods of Land and Grain in the west." Teotihuacan , near modern-day Mexico City , is the largest ancient grid-plan site in the Americas . The city's grid covered 21 square kilometres (8 square miles). Perhaps the most well-known grid system is that spread through the colonies of the Roman Empire. The archetypal Roman Grid was introduced to Italy first by the Greeks, with such information transferred by way of trade and conquest. Although
14454-584: The Americas were established according to this pattern, echoing the practices of earlier Indian civilizations. The baroque capital city of Malta , Valletta , dating back to the 16th century, was built following a rigid grid plan of uniformly designed houses, dotted with palaces, churches and squares. The grid plan became popular with the start of the Renaissance in Northern Europe. In 1606,
14652-658: The British Isles, the planned new town system involving a grid street layout was part of the system of burgage . An example of a medieval planned city in The Netherlands is Elburg . Bury St Edmunds is an example of a town planned on a grid system in the late 11th century. The Roman model was also used in Spanish settlements during the Reconquista of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was subsequently applied in
14850-644: The British in North America for the remainder of the war and a haven for Loyalist refugees. Continental Army officer Nathan Hale was hanged in Manhattan for espionage. In addition, the British began to hold the majority of captured American prisoners of war aboard prison ships in Wallabout Bay , across the East River in Brooklyn . More Americans died from neglect aboard these ships than died in all
15048-566: The Downtown Lower Manhattan Association contributed to a city plan calling for the revitalization of Lower Manhattan. The plan included recommended zoning changes, tax incentives to encourage new tenants, and the conversion of commercial buildings into apartments. It also called for the creation of a business improvement district, called The Alliance for Downtown New York, to help spur the area's renewal. Between 1995 and 2014, 15.8 million square feet of office space
15246-705: The Dutch. The Dutch Republic sent additional forces to the aid of Kieft, leading to the overwhelming defeat of the Native Americans and a peace treaty on August 29, 1645. On May 27, 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was inaugurated as director general upon his arrival. The colony was granted self-government in 1652, and New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2, 1653. The first mayors ( burgemeesters ) of New Amsterdam, Arent van Hattem and Martin Cregier , were appointed in that year. In 1664,
15444-583: The English conquered the area and renamed it " New York " after the Duke of York and the city of York in Yorkshire. At that time, people of African descent made up 20% of the population of the city, with European settlers numbering approximately 1,500, and people of African descent numbering 375 (with 300 of that 375 enslaved and 75 free). While it has been claimed that African slaves comprised 40% of
15642-625: The Great. His conquests were a step in the propagation of the grid plan throughout colonies, some as far-flung as Taxila in Pakistan, that would later be mirrored by the expansion of the Roman Empire. The Greek grid had its streets aligned roughly in relation to the cardinal points and generally looked to take advantage of visual cues based on the hilly landscape typical of Greece and Asia Minor. The street grid consisted of plateiai and stenophoi (equivalent to Roman decumani and cardines ). This
15840-733: The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, including the former Bell Telephone Labs Complex (1861–1933), now Westbeth Artists' Housing , designated in 2011; the Silver Towers/University Village Complex (1967), designed by I.M. Pei and including the Picasso sculpture Portrait of Sylvette , designated in 2008; and three early 19th-century federal houses at 127, 129 and 131 MacDougal Street. Several contextual rezonings were enacted in Greenwich Village in recent years to limit
16038-621: The Judson Poets' Theater, located at Judson Memorial Church on the south side of Washington Square Park . The Village had a cutting-edge cabaret and music scene. The Village Gate , the Village Vanguard , and the Blue Note (since 1981) regularly hosted some of the biggest names in jazz . Greenwich Village also played a major role in the development of the folk music scene of the 1960s. Music clubs included Gerde's Folk City , The Bitter End , Cafe Au Go Go , Cafe Wha? , The Gaslight Cafe and The Bottom Line . Three of
16236-582: The Twin Towers also caused extensive damage to surrounding buildings and skyscrapers in Lower Manhattan. A total of 2,753 people, including those on the planes, were killed in New York. About 400,000 people, including rescue workers and residents of the area were exposed to toxic dust and debris; many developed serious respiratory illnesses, cancers, and other harms arising from the attack, and 3,496 died. Following September 11, Lower Manhattan lost much of its economy and office space but has since rebounded significantly. Private sector employment reached 233,000 at
16434-548: The Village after drinking at the White Horse Tavern on November 5, 1953. Off-Off-Broadway began in Greenwich Village in 1958 as a reaction to Off Broadway , and a "complete rejection of commercial theatre". Among the first venues for what would soon be called "Off-Off-Broadway" (a term supposedly coined by critic Jerry Tallmer of the Village Voice ) were coffeehouses in Greenwich Village, in particular,
16632-533: The Village and have fought to preserve its architectural and historic integrity. In the 1960s, Margot Gayle led a group of citizens to preserve the Jefferson Market Courthouse (later reused as Jefferson Market Library), while other citizen groups fought to keep traffic out of Washington Square Park, and Jane Jacobs , using the Village as an example of a vibrant urban community, advocated to keep it that way. Since then, preservation has been
16830-793: The Village's nightclub, theater, and coffeehouse scene during the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. Many artists garnered critical acclaim, some before and some after, performed in the Village. This list includes Eric Andersen , Joan Baez , Jackson Browne , the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem , Richie Havens , Jimi Hendrix , Janis Ian , the Kingston Trio , the Lovin' Spoonful , Bette Midler , Liza Minnelli , Joni Mitchell , Maria Muldaur , Laura Nyro , Phil Ochs , Tom Paxton , Peter, Paul, and Mary , Carly Simon , Simon & Garfunkel , Nina Simone , Barbra Streisand , James Taylor , and
17028-550: The Village, most notably the monthly magazines American Heritage and Fortune and formerly also the citywide newsweekly the Village Voice . The National Audubon Society , having relocated its national headquarters from a mansion in Carnegie Hill to a restored and very green , former industrial building in NoHo , relocated to smaller but even greener LEED certified building at 225 Varick Street, on Houston Street near
17226-415: The Village. As one press critic put it in 2013, "For decades, New York University has waged architectural war on Greenwich Village." In recent years, the university has clashed most prominently with community groups such as the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation over the construction of new NYU academic buildings and residence halls. During the design of Furman Hall in 2000, the site of which
17424-724: The Weavers , who also in Christmas 1949, played at the Village Vanguard . The annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade , initiated in 1974 by Greenwich Village puppeteer and mask maker Ralph Lee , is the world's largest Halloween parade and America's only major Halloween nighttime parade, attracting more than 60,000 costumed participants, two million in-person spectators, and a worldwide television audience of over 100 million. The parade has its roots in New York's queer community. Greenwich Village again became important to
17622-712: The West Village neighborhood tabulation area. According to the 2010 United States Census , the population of West Village was 66,880, a change of −1,603 (−2.4%) from the 68,483 counted in 2000 . Covering an area of 583.47 acres (236.12 ha), the neighborhood had a population density of 114.6/acre (73,300/sq mi; 28,300/km). The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 80.9% (54,100) White , 2% (1,353) African American , 0.1% (50) Native American , 8.2% (5,453) Asian , 0% (20) Pacific Islander , 0.4% (236) from other races , and 2.4% (1,614) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race were 6.1% (4,054) of
17820-415: The West Village neighborhood typically exceeding US$ 2,100/sq ft ($ 23,000/m) in 2017. The neighborhood is bordered by Broadway to the east, the North River (part of the Hudson River ) to the west, Houston Street to the south, and 14th Street to the north. It is roughly centered on Washington Square Park and New York University . Adjacent to Greenwich Village are the neighborhoods of NoHo and
18018-461: The Woods". The English conquered the Dutch settlement of New Netherland in 1664, and Greenwich Village developed as a hamlet separate from the larger New York City to the south on land that would eventually become the Financial District . In 1644, the eleven Dutch African settlers in the area were granted half freedoms after the first Black legal protest in America. All received parcels of land in what
18216-747: The World Trade Center, brought many new residents to the area. Gateway Plaza, the first Battery Park City development, was finished in 1983. The project's centerpiece, the World Financial Center , consists of four luxury highrise towers. By the turn of the century, Battery Park City was mostly completed, with the exception of some ongoing construction on West Street. Around this time, Lower Manhattan reached its highest population of business tenants and full-time residents. These developments struggled to become fully occupied at desirable rents, with relatively high vacancy rates. In 1993,
18414-557: The adoption of the grid form as standard: the Romans established castra (forts or camps) first as military centres; some of them developed into administrative hubs. The Roman grid was similar in form to the Greek version of a grid but allowed for practical considerations. For example, Roman castra were often sited on flat land, especially close to or on important nodes like river crossings or intersections of trade routes. The dimensions of
18612-409: The amount of land that is devoted to streets, which becomes unavailable for development and therefore represents an opportunity cost . The wider the street, the higher the opportunity cost. Street width is determined by circulation and aesthetic considerations and is not dependent on the pattern configuration. Any configuration can have wide or narrow streets. Street length influences proportionately
18810-556: The area of Manhattan south of Canal Street. Within business-related contexts, many people use the term Downtown Manhattan to refer only to the Financial District and the corporate offices in the immediate vicinity. For instance, the Business Improvement District managed by the Alliance for Downtown New York defines Downtown as south of Murray Street (essentially South of New York City Hall ), which includes
19008-608: The basis of its status in LGBTQ history, and on June 24, 2016, the Stonewall National Monument was named the first U.S. National Monument dedicated to the LGBTQ-rights movement. Greenwich Village contains the world's oldest gay and lesbian bookstore, Oscar Wilde Bookshop , founded in 1967, while The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center – best known as simply "The Center" – has occupied
19206-539: The battles of the war. British occupation lasted until November 25, 1783. George Washington triumphantly returned to the city that day, as the last British forces left the city . Starting in 1785, the Congress met in New York City under the Articles of Confederation . In 1789, New York City became the first national capital of the United States under the new United States Constitution . The Constitution also created
19404-562: The beginning of the 20th century, with Sapporo , Japan (est. 1868) following a grid plan under American influence. New European towns were planned using grids beginning in the 12th century, most prodigiously in the bastides of southern France that were built during the 13th and 14th centuries. Medieval European new towns using grid plans were widespread, ranging from Wales to the Florentine region. Many were built on ancient grids originally established as Roman colonial outposts. In
19602-653: The bohemian scene during the 1950s, when the Beat Generation focused its energies there. Fleeing from what they saw as oppressive social conformity, a loose collection of writers, poets, artists, and students (later known as the Beats ) and the Beatniks , moved to Greenwich Village, and to North Beach in San Francisco , in many ways creating the U.S. East Coast and West Coast predecessors, respectively, to
19800-542: The building housed the first architectural school in the United States. Soon after its completion in 1857, the building helped to make Greenwich Village central to the arts in New York City, drawing artists from all over the country to work, exhibit, and sell their art. In its initial years Winslow Homer took a studio there, as did Edward Lamson Henry , and many of the artists of the Hudson River School , including Frederic Church and Albert Bierstadt . From
19998-499: The building to 9 stories and restoring the facades of two historic houses located on the site, the Judson House and a red-brick town house where Edgar Allan Poe once lived, which NYU reconstructed as they appeared in the 19th century. Another dispute arose during the construction of the 26-story Founders Hall, a residence hall planned to be constructed on the site of St. Ann's Church at 120 East Twelfth Street. Amidst protests of
20196-774: The buildings of Greenwich Village are mid-rise apartments, 19th century row houses, and the occasional one-family walk-up, a sharp contrast to the high-rise landscape in Midtown and Downtown Manhattan . Politically, Greenwich Village is in New York's 10th congressional district . It is also in the New York State Senate 's 25th district, the New York State Assembly 's 66th district, and the New York City Council 's 3rd district. In
20394-468: The city they reside. Residents of the island or of The Bronx generally speak of going "downtown" to refer to any southbound excursion to any Manhattan destination. A declaration that one is going to be "downtown" may indicate a plan to be anywhere south of 14th Street —the definition of downtown according to the city's official tourism marketing organization —or even 23rd Street . The full phrase Downtown Manhattan may also refer more specifically to
20592-607: The city's unwillingness to invest or modernise the port and the deindustrialization zoning policy. However a large number of small scale, dynamic, and highly specialized industries persisted despite the city's efforts such as the garment industry which was closely tied to the fashion industry in Midtown, or the printing industry; linked with the publishing industry. In the 1950s, a few new buildings were constructed in Lower Manhattan, including an 11-story building at 156 William Street in 1955. A 27-story office building at 20 Broad Street,
20790-516: The city. The project of this architect for Vasilyevsky Island was a typical rectangular grid of streets (originally intended to be canals, like in Amsterdam ), with three lengthwise thoroughfares, rectangularly crossed with about 30 crosswise streets. The shape of street blocks on Vasilyevsky Island are the same, as was later implemented in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 for Manhattan : elongated rectangles. The longest side of each block faces
20988-520: The colonies. After the major defeat of the Continental Army in the Battle of Long Island , General George Washington withdrew to Manhattan Island , but with the subsequent defeat at the Battle of Fort Washington the island was effectively left to the British. The city became a haven for loyalist refugees, becoming a British stronghold for the entire war. Consequently, the area also became
21186-502: The community unit at hand—the clan or extended family in the Muslim world, the economically homogeneous subdivision in modern suburbia—isolates itself from the larger urban scene by using dead ends and culs-de-sac . One famous grid system is in the British new town of Milton Keynes . In this planned city, which began construction in 1967, a system of ten "horizontal" (roughly east–west) and eleven "vertical" (roughly north–south) roads
21384-522: The consent of the state legislature. Ultimately, the Appellate Division of New York's Supreme Court ruled in the university's favor after a lower court blocked the expansion plan; however, so far, the university has only begun construction on 181 Mercer Street , the first building in the planned 1.5-million-square-foot (140,000 m) expansion southwards. For census purposes, the New York City government classifies Greenwich Village as part of
21582-463: The country. Another well-known grid plan is the plan for New York City formulated in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 , a proposal by the state legislature of New York for the development of most of Manhattan above Houston Street . Washington, D.C. , the capital of the United States , was planned under French-American architect Pierre Charles L'Enfant . Under the L'Enfant plan,
21780-428: The current Congress of the United States , and its first sitting was at Federal Hall on Wall Street. The first United States Supreme Court sat there. The United States Bill of Rights was drafted and ratified there. George Washington was inaugurated at Federal Hall. New York City remained the capital of the U.S. until 1790, when the role was transferred to Philadelphia. New York grew as an economic center, first as
21978-457: The delta of the Neva River . The peculiarity of 'lines' (streets) naming in this grid is that are each side of street has its own number, so one 'line' is a side of a street, not the whole street. The numbering is latently zero-based, however the supposed "zero line" has its proper name Kadetskaya liniya , while the opposite side of this street is called the '1-st Line'. Next street is named
22176-451: The demolition of the church, the university decided to maintain and restore the facade and steeple of the building, parts of which were deteriorating or missing, and it now stands freely directly in front of the 12th Street entrance of the building. Further controversy also arose over the height of the building, as well as how the university would integrate the church's facade into the building's uses; however, in 2006, NYU began construction and
22374-447: The discussion of constructing seawalls and other coastal barriers around the shorelines of Manhattan and the New York City metropolitan region to minimize the risk of destructive consequences from another such event in the future. Lower Manhattan has been experiencing a baby boom , well above the overall birth rate in Manhattan, with the area south of Canal Street witnessing 1,086 births in 2010, 12% greater than 2009 and over twice
22572-597: The earliest planned cities were built using grid plans in the Indian subcontinent. By 2600 BC, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa , major cities of the Indus Valley civilization , were built with blocks divided by a grid of straight streets, running north–south and east–west. Each block was subdivided by small lanes. The cities and monasteries of Sirkap , Taxila and Thimi (in the Indus and Kathmandu Valleys ), dating from
22770-516: The early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn , 53 Christopher Street . Considered together, the demonstrations are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States . On June 23, 2015, the Stonewall Inn was the first landmark in New York City to be recognized by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission on
22968-485: The edges of the superblock, along the arterial. This paradigm prevailed between about 1930 and 1960, especially in Los Angeles , where notable examples include Leimert Park (an early example) and Panorama City (a late-period one). A prominent 20th century urbanist, Lewis Mumford , severely criticized some of the grid's characteristics: "With a T-square and a triangle, finally, the municipal engineer could, without
23166-592: The end of 2016, the highest levels since the end of 2001. This was largely due to growth and diversification in the local workforce with gains in employment sectors like Technology, Advertising, Media and Information, as well as Hotel, Restaurants, Retailing, and Health care. As of 2016, Lower Manhattan's business district is home to approximately 700 retail stores and 500 bars and restaurants. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has consummated plans to rebuild downtown Manhattan by adding new streets, buildings, and office space. The National September 11 Memorial at
23364-575: The fact that the bohemian days of Greenwich Village are long gone, because of the extraordinarily high housing costs in the neighborhood. The artists fled to other New York City neighborhoods including SoHo , Tribeca , Dumbo , Williamsburg , and Long Island City . Nevertheless, residents of Greenwich Village still possess a strong community identity and are proud of their neighborhood's unique history and fame, and its well-known liberal live-and-let-live attitudes. Historically, local residents and preservation groups have been concerned about development in
23562-487: The first half of the 20th century, New York became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication . Interborough Rapid Transit , the first New York City Subway company, began operating in 1904. The area's demographics stabilized, labor unionization brought new protections and affluence to the working class, the city's government and infrastructure underwent a dramatic overhaul under Fiorello La Guardia , and his controversial parks commissioner, Robert Moses , ended
23760-420: The focal point for Washington's espionage and intelligence-gathering throughout the war. In 1771, Bear Market was established along the Hudson River shoreline on land donated by Trinity Church , and replaced by Washington Market in 1813. New York City was greatly damaged twice by fires of suspicious origin during British military rule. The city became the political and military center of operations for
23958-423: The former Food & Maritime Trades High School at 208 West 13th Street since 1984. In 2006, the Village was the scene of an assault involving seven lesbians and a straight man that sparked appreciable media attention, with strong statements defending both sides of the case. On June 20, 2023, the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Washington Square North was officially renamed Edie Windsor and Thea Speyer Way at
24156-677: The formerly Dutch New Amsterdam and New Netherland renamed the settlement back to New York. As the colony grew and prospered, sentiment also grew for greater autonomy. In the context of the Glorious Revolution in England, Jacob Leisler led Leisler's Rebellion and effectively controlled the city and surrounding areas from 1689 to 1691, before being arrested and executed. By 1700, the Lenape population of New York had diminished to 200. By 1703, 42% of households in New York had slaves,
24354-423: The forum, around which would be sited important public buildings. Indeed, such was the degree of similarity between towns that Higgins states that soldiers "would be housed at the same address as they moved from castra to castra ". Pompeii has been cited by both Higgins and Laurence as the best-preserved example of the Roman grid. Outside of the castra, large tracts of land were also divided in accordance with
24552-514: The founding of "The Independent Republic of Greenwich Village" on January 24, 1917). In 1924, the Cherry Lane Theatre was established. Located at 38 Commerce Street, it is New York City's oldest continuously running Off-Broadway theater. A landmark in Greenwich Village's cultural landscape, it was built as a farm silo in 1817, and also served as a tobacco warehouse and box factory before Edna St. Vincent Millay and other members of
24750-412: The founding of a Dutch fur trading post in Lower Manhattan, later called New Amsterdam ( Dutch : Nieuw-Amsterdam ) in 1626. The first fort was built at The Battery to protect New Netherland . In approximately 1626, construction of Fort Amsterdam began. The Dutch West Indies Company subsequently imported African slaves to serve as laborers; they helped to build the wall that defended
24948-576: The four members of the Mamas & the Papas met there. Guitarist and folk singer Dave Van Ronk lived there for many years. Village resident and cultural icon Bob Dylan by the mid-60s had become one of the world's foremost popular songwriters, and often developments in Greenwich Village would influence the simultaneously occurring folk rock movement in San Francisco and elsewhere, and vice versa. Dozens of other cultural and popular icons got their start in
25146-421: The freewheeling iconoclasm, pioneering spirit, and do-it-yourself mentality that characterized the pre-gentrification era, still draw patrons from throughout the city and the surrounding region. In the early 21st century, the Meatpacking District , once the sparsely populated province of after-hours BDSM clubs and transgender prostitutes, gained a reputation as New York City's trendiest neighborhood. During
25344-434: The golden age of bohemianism , Greenwich Village became famous for such eccentrics as Joe Gould (profiled at length by Joseph Mitchell ) and Maxwell Bodenheim , dancer Isadora Duncan , writer William Faulkner , and playwright Eugene O'Neill . Political rebellion also made its home here, whether serious ( John Reed ) or frivolous ( Marcel Duchamp and friends set off balloons from atop Washington Square Arch , proclaiming
25542-434: The grid further out from the centre, but maps also show that, in general, as the distance from the centre increases, a variety of patterns emerge in no particular discernible order. In juxtaposition to the grid, they appear random. These new patterns have been systematically classified and their design characteristics measured. In the United States, the grid system was widely used in most major cities and their suburbs until
25740-401: The grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogonal geometry, facilitate movement. The geometry helps with orientation and wayfinding and its frequent intersections with the choice and directness of route to desired destinations. In ancient Rome , the grid plan method of land measurement was called centuriation . The grid plan dates from antiquity and originated in multiple cultures; some of
25938-401: The grid within the walls. These were typically 730 metres (2,400 ft) per side (called centuria ) and contained 100 parcels of land (each called heredium ). The decumanus maximus and cardo maximus extended from the town gates out towards neighbouring settlements. These were lined up to be as straight as possible, only deviating from their path due to natural obstacles that prevented
26136-457: The higher the frequency of the streets. As the frequency of street increases so does the number of intersections. Intersections normally cost more than straight street length because they are labour-intensive and require street and traffic signage. Pavement width influences the cost by affecting the amount of materials and labour required to provide a finished road surface. Pavement width is generally based on traffic engineering considerations and
26334-456: The idea of the grid was present in Hellenic societal and city planning, it was not pervasive prior to the 5th century BC. However, it slowly gained primacy through the work of Hippodamus of Miletus (498–408 BC), who planned and replanned many Greek cities in accordance with this form. The concept of a grid as the ideal method of town planning had become widely accepted by the time of Alexander
26532-420: The increased pace of development in the 1990s. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the architectural and cultural character and heritage of the neighborhood, successfully proposed new districts and individual landmarks to the LPC. Those include: The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated as landmarks several individual sites proposed by
26730-474: The largest alternative newspaper in the United States, announced in 2017 that it would cease publication of its print edition and convert to a fully digital venture . On October 31, 2017, a man drove a pickup truck into the Hudson River Park 's bike path between Houston Street and Chambers Street , killing eight people and injuring at least 15. Most of those who were hit were bicyclists. It
26928-592: The late 19th century until the present, the Hotel Albert has served as a cultural icon of Greenwich Village. Opened during the 1880s and originally located at 11th Street and University Place, called the Hotel St. Stephan and then, after 1902, called the Hotel Albert while under the ownership of William Ryder, it served as a meeting place, restaurant and dwelling for several important artists and writers from
27126-413: The late 19th century well into the 20th century. After 1902, the owner's brother Albert Pinkham Ryder lived and painted there. Some other noted guests who lived there include: Augustus St. Gaudens , Robert Louis Stevenson , Mark Twain , Hart Crane , Walt Whitman , Anaïs Nin , Thomas Wolfe , Robert Lowell , Horton Foote , Salvador Dalí , Philip Guston , Jackson Pollock , and Andy Warhol . During
27324-554: The many Manhattan properties that Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and her husband owned, Gertrude Whitney established the Whitney Studio Club at 8 West 8th Street in 1914, as a facility where young artists could exhibit their works. By the 1930s it had evolved into her greatest legacy, the Whitney Museum of American Art , on the site of today's New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture . The Whitney
27522-420: The map of American bohemian culture in the early and mid-20th century. The neighborhood was known for its colorful, artistic residents and the alternative culture they propagated. Due in part to the progressive attitudes of many of its residents, the Village was a focal point of new movements and ideas, whether political, artistic, or cultural. This tradition as an enclave of avant-garde and alternative culture
27720-505: The mid-1970s largely at two Lower Manhattan venues, CBGB on Bowery in the western edge of the East Village, and Max's Kansas City on Park Avenue South . At the same time, the area's surfeit of appropriated industrial lofts, played an integral role in the development and sustenance of the minimalist composition, free jazz , disco , and electronic dance music subcultures. The area's many nightclubs and bars, though mostly shorn of
27918-612: The most famous courts, is "The Cage", officially known as the West Fourth Street Courts . Sitting atop the West Fourth Street–Washington Square station at Sixth Avenue, the courts are used by basketball and American handball players from across the city. The Cage has become one of the most important tournament sites for the citywide " Streetball " amateur basketball tournament. Since 1975, New York University's art collection has been housed at
28116-712: The nation's first racially integrated nightclub , when Café Society was opened in 1938 at 1 Sheridan Square by Barney Josephson . Café Society showcased African American talent and was intended to be an American version of the political cabarets that Josephson had seen in Europe before World War I . Notable performers there included: Pearl Bailey , Count Basie , Nat King Cole , John Coltrane , Miles Davis , Ella Fitzgerald , Coleman Hawkins , Billie Holiday , Lena Horne , Burl Ives , Lead Belly , Anita O'Day , Charlie Parker , Les Paul and Mary Ford , Paul Robeson , Kay Starr , Art Tatum , Sarah Vaughan , Dinah Washington , Josh White , Teddy Wilson , Lester Young , and
28314-612: The new cities established during the Spanish colonization of the Americas , after the founding of San Cristóbal de La Laguna (Canary Islands) in 1496. In 1573, King Philip II of Spain compiled the Laws of the Indies to guide the construction and administration of colonial communities. The Laws specified a square or rectangular central plaza with eight principal streets running from the plaza's corners. Hundreds of grid-plan communities throughout
28512-558: The new dorm was completed in December 2008. In recent years, the most conflict has arisen over the proposed NYU 2031 plan, which the university released in 2010 as its plan for long-term growth, both within and outside of Greenwich Village. This included a court battle over the City of New York's right to transfer three plots of Department of Transportation-owned land to the university for constructing staging, which plaintiffs claimed required
28710-534: The new headquarters for his bank. He established the Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association (DLMA) which drew up plans for broader revitalization of Lower Manhattan, with the development of a world trade center at the heart of these plans. The original DLMA plans called for the "world trade center" to be built along the East River , between Old Slip and Fulton Street . After negotiations with New Jersey Governor Richard J. Hughes ,
28908-423: The newly founded city of Mannheim in Germany was the first Renaissance city laid out on the grid plan. Later came the New Town in Edinburgh and almost the entire city centre of Glasgow , and many planned communities and cities in Australia , Canada and the United States . Derry , constructed in 1613–1618, was the first planned city in Ireland . The central diamond within a walled city with four gates
29106-448: The north side of Houston Street and around Bleecker Street and Carmine Street. Many of them being immigrants from Naples and Sicily . Up until the late 2000s, the village was home to one of the largest Italian speaking communities in the United States. Greenwich Village includes several collegiate institutions. Since the 1830s, New York University (NYU) has had a campus there. In 1973 NYU moved from its campus in University Heights in
29304-434: The number born in 2001. The Financial District alone has witnessed growth in its population to approximately 43,000 as of 2014, nearly double the 23,000 recorded at the 2000 Census. There are currently 61,000 residents in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan south of Chambers Street and more than 62 percent of the population is between 18 and 44. Lower Manhattan is home to more young professionals than Greenpoint ,
29502-405: The number of street components that have to be constructed such as pavement, curbs and sidewalks, storm sewers and drains, light poles, and trees. The street length of a given area of development depends on the frequency at which streets occur which in turn depends on the length and width of a block. The higher the frequency of streets the longer is their total length. The smaller the block dimensions
29700-417: The numbered streets appeared in the continental part of the city: 13 streets named from the '1-st Rota' up to the '13-th Rota', where the companies ( German : Rotte , Russian : рота ) of the Izmaylovsky Regiment were located. Many of the earliest cities in the United States, such as Boston , did not start with a grid system. However, even in pre-revolutionary days some cities saw the benefits of such
29898-470: The older street grid. When Sixth and Seventh Avenues were extended in the early 20th century, they were built diagonally to the existing street plan, and many older, smaller streets had to be demolished. Unlike the streets of most of Manhattan above Houston Street, streets in the Village are typically named, not numbered. While some of the formerly named streets (including Factory, Herring and Amity Streets) are now numbered, they still do not always conform to
30096-409: The ordered structure of the newer parts of Manhattan. Many of the neighborhood's streets are narrow and some curve at odd angles. This is generally regarded as adding to both the historic character and charm of the neighborhood. In addition, as the meandering Greenwich Street used to be on the Hudson River shoreline, much of the neighborhood west of Greenwich Street is on landfill, but still follows
30294-446: The original District of Columbia was developed using a grid plan that is interrupted by diagonal avenues, most famously Pennsylvania Avenue . These diagonals are often connected by traffic circles , such as Dupont Circle and Washington Circle . As the city grew, the plan was duplicated to cover most of the remainder of the capital. Meanwhile, the core of the city faced disarray and the McMillan Plan , led by Senator James McMillan ,
30492-405: The original Five Points neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, was born in the 1850s and continues to be the epicenter of culture for the Chinese diaspora . Lower Manhattan contains many more historical buildings and sites, including Castle Clinton , Bowling Green , the old United States Customs House (now the National Museum of the American Indian ), Federal Hall National Memorial commemorating
30690-430: The pedestrian perspective, the smaller the block is, the easier the navigation and the more direct the route. Consequently, the finer grids are preferred. Patterns that incorporate discontinuous street types such as crescents and culs-de-sac have not, in general, regarded pedestrian movement as a priority and, consequently, have produced blocks that are usually in the 1,000 feet (300 m) range and often exceed it. As
30888-422: The percentage of residents who have difficulty paying their rent, is 38% in Greenwich Village and SoHo, compared to the boroughwide and citywide rates of 45% and 51%, respectively. Based on this calculation, as of 2018, Greenwich Village and SoHo are considered high-income relative to the rest of the city and not gentrifying . Throughout the 1930s, many Italian-Americans starting leaving Little Italy and moved on
31086-401: The planners of Tokyo eschewed the grid, opting instead for an irregular network of streets surrounding the Edo Castle grounds. In later periods, some parts of Tokyo were grid-planned, but grid plans are generally rare in Japan, and the Japanese addressing system is accordingly based on increasingly fine subdivisions, rather than a grid. The grid-planning tradition in Asia continued through
31284-420: The population. Greenwich Village is home to a significant concentration of same-sex couples. The entirety of Community District 2, which comprises Greenwich Village and SoHo, had 91,638 inhabitants as of NYC Health 's 2018 Community Health Profile, with an average life expectancy of 85.8 years. This is higher than the median life expectancy of 81.2 for all New York City neighborhoods. Most inhabitants are adults:
31482-448: The prison was north of the New York City boundary at the time, being sentenced to Newgate became known as being "sent up the river". This term became popularized once prisoners started being sentenced to Sing Sing Prison , in the town of Ossining upstream of New York City. The oldest house remaining in Greenwich Village is the Isaacs-Hendricks House, at 77 Bedford Street (built 1799, much altered and enlarged 1836, third story 1928). When
31680-402: The rectilinear geometry, the wide streets and boulevards to sustain high mobility and the truncated corners to facilitate turning of carts and coaches and particularly vehicles on fixed rails. In maps of larger American cities, the downtown areas are almost always grids. These areas represent the original land dimensions of the founded city, generally around one square mile. Some cities expanded
31878-454: The relatively narrow street with a numeric name (in Petersburg they are called Liniya (Line) ) while the shortest side faces wide avenues. To denote avenues in Petersburg, a special term prospekt was introduced. Inside the grid of Vasilyevsky Island there are three prospekts, named Bolshoi ( Big ), Sredniy ( Middle ) and Maly ( Small ) while the far ends of each line cross with the embankments of Bolshaya Neva and Smolenka rivers in
32076-467: The river on 640 acres (exactly 1 square mile; about 2.6 km ). After surveying the land, Waller organized the almost immediate sale of 306 lots, and by the end of the year the entire Texas government had arrived by oxcart at the new site. Apart from the speed of surveying advantage, the rationale at the time of the grid's adoption in this and other cities remains obscure. In 1836 William Light drew up his plans for Adelaide , South Australia, spanning
32274-422: The second were usually too wide for purely neighborhood functions... as for its contribution to the permanent social functions of the city, the anonymous gridiron plan proved empty." In the 1960s, traffic engineers and urban planners abandoned the grid virtually wholesale in favor of a " street hierarchy ". This is a thoroughly "asymmetric" street arrangement in which a residential subdivision—often surrounded by
32472-461: The site was opened to the public on September 11, 2011, while the National September 11 Museum was officially inaugurated by President Barack Obama on May 15, 2014. As of the time of its opening in November 2014, the new One World Trade Center , formerly known as the Freedom Tower , is the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere and the sixth-tallest in the world , at 1,776 feet (541 m); while other skyscrapers are under construction at
32670-425: The site where George Washington was inaugurated as the first U.S. President, Fraunces Tavern , New York City Hall , the Museum of American Finance , the New York Stock Exchange Building , South Street Seaport , the Brooklyn Bridge , South Ferry (the embarkation point for the Staten Island Ferry ), and Trinity Church . Lower Manhattan is home to some of New York City's most spectacular skyscrapers, including
32868-632: The site. The Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park , formerly known as Liberty Plaza Park, began in the Financial District on September 17, 2011, receiving global attention and spawning the Occupy movement against social and economic inequality worldwide. On October 29 and 30, 2012, Hurricane Sandy ravaged portions of Lower Manhattan with record-high storm surge from New York Harbor, severe flooding, and high winds, causing power outages for hundreds of thousands of Manhattanites and leading to gasoline shortages and disruption of mass transit systems. The storm and its effects have prompted
33066-423: The size and height of allowable new development in the neighborhood, and to encourage the preservation of existing buildings. The following were proposed by the GVSHP and passed by the City Planning Commission : New York University and Greenwich Village preservationists have frequently become embroiled in conflicts between the university's campus expansion efforts and the preservation of the scale and character of
33264-423: The skyline of Lower Manhattan. The 9/11 Memorial & Museum at the former World Trade Center site has become a popular draw for visitors. New York City has been described as the gay capital of the world, and the epicenter of LGBT culture and its catalyst as a continuing cultural force in modern society has been the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village . Similarly, Chinatown , which was spawned just east of
33462-434: The slightest training as either an architect or a sociologist, 'plan' a metropolis, with its standard lots, its standard blocks, its standard street widths, in short, with its standardized comparable, and replaceable parts. The new gridiron plans were spectacular in their inefficiency and waste. By usually failing to discriminate sufficiently between main arteries and residential streets, the first were not made wide enough while
33660-437: The small population of the city at that time, this claim has not been substantiated. During the mid-1600s, farms of free blacks covered 130 acres (53 ha) where Washington Square Park later developed. The Dutch briefly regained the city in 1673 , renaming the city " New Orange ", before permanently ceding the colony of New Netherland to the English for what is now Suriname in November 1674. The new English rulers of
33858-411: The state level by New York Governor Kathy Hochul , in honor of the Greenwich Village plaintiffs who prevailed at the United States Supreme Court in 2013, in finding the Defense of Marriage Act , which had limited the definition of marriage as being valid strictly between one man and one woman, to be unconstitutional . Since the end of the 20th century, many artists and local historians have mourned
34056-461: The street length. A simple example of a grid street pattern (see diagram) illustrates the progressive reduction in total street length (the sum of all individual street lengths) and the corresponding increase in block length. For a corresponding reduction of one, two, three and four streets within this 40-acre (16 ha) parcel, the street length is reduced from an original total of 12,600 feet (3,800 m) to 7,800 feet (2,400 m) linear feet,
34254-457: The subheading "Greenwich Village") that the southern border of the Village is Spring Street , reflecting an earlier understanding. Today, Spring Street overlaps with the modern, newer SoHo neighborhood designation, while the modern Encyclopædia Britannica cites the southern border as Houston Street. As Greenwich Village was once a rural, isolated hamlet to the north of the 17th century European settlement on Manhattan Island , its street layout
34452-453: The town against English and native attacks. Early directors included Willem Verhulst and Peter Minuit . Willem Kieft became a director in 1638 but five years later was embroiled in Kieft's War against the Native Americans. The Pavonia Massacre , across the Hudson River in present-day Jersey City , New Jersey resulted in the death of 80 natives in February 1643. Following the massacre, Algonquian tribes joined forces and nearly defeated
34650-477: The turn of the 20th century. The original Penn Station opened in 1910, the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad (now PATH) extension to 33rd Street was completed in 1910, and Grand Central Terminal opened in 1913. On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Greenwich Village took the lives of 146 garment workers, which would eventually lead to great advancements in the city's fire department, building codes, and workplace regulations. Throughout
34848-403: The usual grid pattern when they enter the neighborhood. For example, West 4th Street runs east–west across most of Manhattan, but runs north–south in Greenwich Village, causing it to intersect with West 10th, 11th, and 12th Streets before ending at West 13th Street. A large section of Greenwich Village, made up of more than 50 northern and western blocks in the area up to 14th Street, is part of
35046-404: The westward development of the United States, the use of the grid plan was nearly universal in the construction of new settlements, such as in Salt Lake City (1870), Dodge City (1872) and Oklahoma City (1890). In these western cities the streets were numbered even more carefully than in the east to suggest future prosperity and metropolitan status. One of the main advantages of the grid plan
35244-423: Was a potter's field from 1797 to 1823 when up to 20,000 of New York's poor were buried here, and still remain. The handsome Greek revival rowhouses on the north side of Washington Square were built about 1832, establishing the fashion of Washington Square and lower Fifth Avenue for decades to come. Well into the 19th century, the district of Washington Square was considered separate from Greenwich Village. In 1825,
35442-469: Was a 700-foot (210-m) extension into the river, running six blocks or 1,484 feet (452 m), covering 92 acres (37 ha), providing a 1.2-mile (1.9 km) riverfront esplanade and over 30 acres (12 ha) of parks. Through much of its history, the area south of Chambers Street was mainly a commercial district, with a small population of residents—in 1960, it was home to about 4,000. Construction of Battery Park City , on landfill from construction of
35640-419: Was accidentally detonated, killing three of their members ( Ted Gold , Terry Robbins , and Diana Oughton ). The Village has been a center for movements that challenged the wider American culture, most notably its seminal role in sparking the gay liberation movement. The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent protests by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in
35838-412: Was adopted to build a National Mall and a parks system that is still today a jewel of the city. Often, some of the streets in a grid are numbered (First, Second, etc.), lettered, or arranged in alphabetical order. Downtown San Diego uses all three schemes: north–south streets are numbered from west to east, and east–west streets are split between a lettered series running southward from A through L and
36036-432: Was also one of the primary bases of the American folk music revival of the 1960s. Many art galleries were located in SoHo between the 1970s and early 1990s; today, the downtown Manhattan gallery scene is centered in Chelsea. From the 1960s onward, Lower Manhattan has been home to many alternative theater companies, constituting the heart of the Off-Off-Broadway community. Punk rock and its musical derivatives emerged in
36234-482: Was based on Greek Ionic ideas, and it was here that the main east–west and north–south axes of a town (the decumanus maximus and cardo maximus respectively) could first be seen in Italy. According to Stanislawski (1946), the Romans did use grids until the time of the late Republic or early Empire, when they introduced centuriation , a system which they spread around the Mediterranean and into northern Europe later on. The military expansion of this period facilitated
36432-410: Was considered a good design for defence. The grid pattern was widely copied in the colonies of British North America . In Russia the first planned city was St. Petersburg founded in 1703 by Peter I . Being aware of the modern European construction experience which he examined in the years of his Grand Embassy to Europe , the Czar ordered Domenico Trezzini to elaborate the first general plan of
36630-436: Was converted to residential or hotel use. As a result, Lower Manhattan's residential population rose from 14,000 to 60,000. Since the early-20th century, Lower Manhattan has been an important center for the arts and leisure activities. Greenwich Village was a locus of bohemian culture from the first decade of the century through the 1980s. Several of the city's leading jazz clubs are still located in Greenwich Village, which
36828-411: Was established during the 19th century and continued into the 20th century, when small presses, art galleries, and experimental theater thrived. In 1969, enraged members of the gay community, in search for equality, started the Stonewall riots . The Stonewall Inn was later recognized as a National Historic Landmark for having been the location where the gay rights movement originated. On June 27, 2019,
37026-715: Was followed by a gentrification process in the 1980s. There are numerous historic buildings in the neighborhood including Emma Lazarus 's former residence on West 10th Street and Edward Hopper 's former studio (now the NYU Silver School of Social Work). The historic Washington Square Park is the center and heart of the neighborhood. Additionally, the Village has several other, smaller parks: Christopher, Father Fagan, Little Red Square, Minetta Triangle, Petrosino Square, and Time Landscape. There are also city playgrounds, including DeSalvio Playground , Minetta, Thompson Street , Bleecker Street, Downing Street, Mercer Street , Cpl. John A. Seravelli, and William Passannante Ballfield. One of
37224-550: Was founded in 1931, as an answer to the Museum of Modern Art , founded 1928, and its collection of mostly European modernism and its neglect of American Art . Gertrude Whitney decided to put the time and money into the museum after the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art turned down her offer to contribute her twenty-five-year collection of modern art works. In 1936, the renowned Abstract Expressionist artist and teacher Hans Hofmann moved his art school from East 57th Street to 52 West 9th Street. In 1938, Hofmann moved again to
37422-436: Was founded under charter by George II of Great Britain as King's College in Lower Manhattan. The Stamp Act and other British measures fomented dissent, particularly among the Sons of Liberty , who maintained a long-running skirmish with locally stationed British troops over Liberty Poles from 1766 to 1776. The Stamp Act Congress met in New York City in 1765 in the first organized resistance to British authority across
37620-415: Was given its own name. The system provided very easy transport within the city, although it confused visitors who were unfamiliar with the system. The grid squares thus formed are far larger than the city blocks described earlier, and the road layouts within the grid squares are generally 'organic' in form – matching the street hierarchy model described above. Street width , or right of way (ROW), influences
37818-640: Was more than double the current rate. In 2009, after several decades of road safety improvements and a continuous decline in fatalities, an estimated 33,963 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes and, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, "Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for children from 3 to 14 years old." Planners, therefore, called for an inwardly focused " superblock " arrangement that minimized through automobile traffic and discouraged cars from traveling on anything but arterial roads ; traffic generators, such as apartment complexes and shops, would be restricted to
38016-413: Was probably best exemplified in Priene , in present-day western Turkey, where the orthogonal city grid was based on the cardinal points, on sloping terrain that struck views out towards a river and the city of Miletus . The Etruscan people , whose territories in Italy encompassed what would eventually become Rome, founded what is now the city of Marzabotto at the end of the 6th century BC. Its layout
38214-453: Was renamed the Christopher Street–Stonewall station on the same day. The Tenth Street Studio Building was situated at 51 West 10th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues . The building was commissioned by James Boorman Johnston and designed by Richard Morris Hunt . Its innovative design soon represented a national architectural prototype, and featured a domed central gallery, from which interconnected rooms radiated. Hunt's studio within
38412-408: Was that it allowed the rapid subdivision and auction of a large parcel of land. For example, when the legislature of the Republic of Texas decided in 1839 to move the capital to a new site along the Colorado River , the functioning of the government required the rapid population of the town, which was named Austin . Charged with the task, Edwin Waller designed a fourteen-block grid that fronted
38610-612: Was the entirety of the city. Lower Manhattan serves as the seat of government of both Manhattan and the entire City of New York. Because there are no municipally defined boundaries for the neighborhood, a precise population cannot be quoted, but several sources have suggested that it was one of the fastest-growing locations in New York City between 2010 and 2020, related to the influx of young adults and significant development of new housing units. Despite various definitions of Lower Manhattan, they generally include all of Manhattan Island south of 14th Street . Anchored by Wall Street and
38808-422: Was the first deadly terrorist attack in Manhattan since 9/11. Since 2010, a Lower Manhattan community known as Little Australia has emerged and is growing in the Nolita neighborhood. Before the September 11 attacks , the Twin Towers were iconic of Lower Manhattan's global significance as a financial center . The new office towers built since the attack (including One World Trade Center ) have transformed
39006-407: Was to provide a rational and humanitarian place for retribution and rehabilitation, the prison soon became an overcrowded and pestilent place, subject to frequent riots by the prisoners which damaged the buildings and killed some inmates. By 1821, the prison, designed for 432 inmates, held 817 instead, a number made possible only by the frequent release of prisoners, sometimes as many as 50 a day. Since
39204-432: Was used, with roundabouts at each intersection. The horizontal roads were all given names ending in 'way' and H numbers (for 'horizontal', e.g., H3 Monks Way). The vertical roads were given names ending in 'street' and V numbers (for 'vertical', e.g., V6 Grafton Street ). Each grid road was spaced roughly one kilometre along from the next, forming squares of approximately one square kilometre. Each square and each roundabout
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